In November 1815, before the publication of her fourth novel Emma (1816), Jane Austen was invited by James Stanier Clarke to Carlton House, the London residence of the Prince Regent George (later King George IV). The Prince was a great admirer of Austen's novels and had asked Clarke, his librarian, to give the novelist a tour of his library. During the tour, Clarke suggested that Austen dedicate her next novel to the Prince, which she ultimately did. A dedication copy of Emma was sent to Carlton House a month later. (Incidentally, the dedication was made with great reluctance, as Austen strongly disapproved of the Prince due to his womanising and extravagant lifestyle.)
Following their initial contact in November 1815, Jane Austen and James Stanier Clarke exchanged letters. Seen below are two of the letters Austen wrote to Clarke. Having arranged for her publisher John Murray to send a copy of Emma to the Prince Regent, in the first letter, dated 11 December 1815, Austen thanked Clarke for his praise for her previous work and expressed concern that Emma might not hold the same standard. At the same time, she politely declined Clarke's unsolicited advice, saying she was incapable of following it. Apart from being a librarian, Clarke was also a clergyman and had given Austen suggestions on how to properly portray an English clergyman in her future work.
Dear Sir,—My Emma is now so near publication that I feel it right to assure you of my not having forgotten your kind recommendation of an early copy for Carlton House, and that I have Mr. Murray's promise of its being sent to His Royal Highness, under cover to you, three days previous to the work being really out. I must make use of this opportunity to thank you, dear Sir, for the very high praise you bestow on my other novels. I am too vain to wish to convince you that you have praised them beyond their merit. My greatest anxiety at present is that this fourth work should not disgrace what was good in the others. But on this point I will do myself the justice to declare that, whatever may be my wishes for its success, I am very strongly haunted by the idea that to those readers who have preferred Pride and Prejudice it will appear inferior in wit; and to those who have preferred Mansfield Park, very inferior in good sense. Such as it is, however, I hope you will do me the favour of accepting a copy. Mr. Murray will have directions for sending one. I am quite honoured by your thinking me capable of drawing such a clergyman as you gave the sketch of in your note of November 16th. But I assure you I am not. The comic part of the character I might be equal to, but not the good, the enthusiastic, the literary. Such a man's conversation must at times be on subjects of science and philosophy, of which I know nothing; or at least occasionally abundant in quotations and allusions which a woman who, like me, knows only her own mother tongue, and has read little in that, would be totally without the power of giving. A classical education, or at any rate a very extensive acquaintance with English literature, ancient and modern, appears to me quite indispensable for the person who would do any justice to your clergyman; and I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.
Believe me, dear Sir, Your obliged and faithful humble Sert., Jane Austen.
Clarke was not yet finished with his suggestions. In a letter from March 1816, having just been appointed "Chaplain and Private English Secretary to the Prince of Cobourg", he proposed that Austen try her hand at writing historical romance. Below is Austen's cordial yet firm response, telling Clarke that historical fiction was not her forte, while also putting an end to any further suggestions.
My dear Sir,—I am honoured by the Prince's thanks and very much obliged to yourself for the kind manner in which you mention the work. I have also to acknowledge a former letter forwarded to me from Hans Place. I assure you I felt very grateful for the friendly tenor of it, and hope my silence will have been considered, as it was truly meant, to proceed only from an unwillingness to tax your time with idle thanks. Under every interesting circumstance which your own talent and literary labours have placed you in, or the favour of the Regent bestowed, you have my best wishes. Your recent appointments I hope are a step to something still better. In my opinion, the service of a court can hardly be too well paid, for immense must be the sacrifice of time and feeling required by it.
You are very, very kind in your hints as to the sort of composition which might recommend me at present, and I am fully sensible that an historical romance, founded on the House of Saxe Cobourg, might be much more to the purpose of profit or popularity than such pictures of domestic life in country villages as I deal in. But I could no more write a romance than an epic poem. I could not sit seriously down to write a serious romance under any other motive than to save my life; and if it were indispensable for me to keep it up and never relax into laughing at myself or at other people, I am sure I should be hung before I had finished the first chapter. No, I must keep to my own style and go on in my own way, and though I may never succeed again in that, I am convinced that I should totally fail in any other.
I remain, my dear Sir,
Your very much obliged, and sincere friend,
J. Austen.
Chawton, near Alton, April 1, 1816.
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